Tuesday, 7 September 2010

As reported by the Guardian last week, 22 different green, countryside and housing groups have written to Energy Secretary Chris Huhne warning against cutting renewable energy incentives like the Feed-in tariffs and the still hoped for Renewable Heat Incentive.

With heating responsible for 47% of the UK's emissions and 49% of energy demand, many are claiming that any Government serious about climate change can't afford to ignore the problem.

The recently introduced Feed-in tariffs for self generated electricity have seen a massive boom in interest, but such uptake causes huge problems for the Government in how to continue funding such a scheme.

And with worrying noises from Whitehall inferring that when the funding is reviewed in 2012, tariffs may be cut (as they have in other european countries), then it's not hard to see why so many are beginning to worry.

Economic knock-on effect

The economic knock on of such schemes is job creation in the energy and building sectors, whilst also boosting manufacturing. Supporters fear any cuts will set back their respective industry sectors considerably in what is a fragile state of recovery.

A spending review is due to be published on the 20th October and it will be very interesting to see if the Government have heeded the repeated calls to leave the present generation tariff schemes alone.